Reiss has designed his book for use in both basic and advanced courses treating sports in American history. His purpose is to explain how sport in America developed from a morally suspect, premodern entertainment in the 1850s that did not pretend to attract the interest of many Americans, into a respectable modernized national fetish, culminating in the Golden Age of Sports in the 1920s. The documentation is exceptionally well done and thorough, and the resulting book is thoroughly readable. Highly recommended as a must acquisition for any academic library or public library catering to an informed public. H. F. Kenny Jr.; Wesleyan University